Vintage movies have given us several parameters for measuring masculinity: being a professional pilot (good), taking out a gaggle of Nazis single-handedly (better), driving trucks at devil-may-care speeds along the most dangerous routes imaginable (off the charts). That\u2019s what the he-men in Cy Endfield\u2019s nail-biter do for a living, hauling heavy loads of ballast through treacherous terrain. Naturally, these gents vie to see who can make the most runs, and the newest employee\u2014a drifter named Tom (Baker)\u2014is determined to prove he\u2019s king of the road. But he\u2019s got to watch out for the company\u2019s on-the-prowl secretary (Cummins)\u2026the same one dating Tom\u2019s only friend (Lom).<\/p>\n
This is the stuff that B-movie dreams are made of, and Hell Drivers does its damnedest to deliver bottom-of-the-bill bliss. Rough, urgent cynicism is the name of the game; there\u2019s precious little Hawksian camaraderie, only capitalism and cutthroat competition, courtesy of brutish alpha male Patrick McGoohan. (The cast also includes a young Sean Connery, thus offering peeks at a bizarro world in which Inspector Dreyfus romances Gun Crazy\u2019s Annie Starr while James Bond and Number Six start dance-hall brawls.) Endfield\u2019s tale of tough guys under pressure isn\u2019t top-tier, though it is unjustly neglected; like its antiheroes, the film moves at a full-throttle pace and hugs the curves remarkably tightly.